Part 3 (2/2)
As he reined the tough-mouthed horse out across the barn lot, Joe remembered that Baker usually worked for one of the mesa outfits each fall on roundup. Doubtless the man now lay asleep in his blankets close to one of the chuck wagons working the higher hills.
Within 100 yards of the corral, Joe realized that his luck had been bad on the horse. The animal was lamed in the right foreleg. Dismounting, Joe inspected the leg and found a swelling above the hoof. It wasn't sore to the touch, but neither was it sound. Anchor lay a good twenty miles away, and Joe doubted that the animal was good for that distance. But he would use him until he lamed badly.
He rode back and found his war bag. When he had tied it to the cantle and had pointed the pony's head toward the peaks, he was whistling. It was good to be on his way home.
The Horsehair Hatband.
Fred Vanover's face as he looked in upon the lantern-lighted ruin of Acme's office showed as bleak an expression as Lyans or any other of the half dozen men inside had ever seen it wear. The Middle Arizona man had been informed of the main fact on his way down with Roy Keech, the hotel clerk, who had been sent to get him. He knew that the safe had been robbed, and he knew that Ed Merrill lay dead in the alley, the front of his skull crushed in from the blow of a gun b.u.t.t.
He now looked at Lyans and at Clark Dunne, standing alongside the deputy, as he came in the door, and Lyans said courteously: ”We didn't touch a thing, Mister Vanover.”
The Middle Arizona man nodded briefly and surveyed the room. The safe's flimsy door was buckled outward, torn from its lower nickeled hinge. The roll-top desk had been pushed away by the concussion, three of its slats broken in by a piece of flying metal. The swivel chair lay on its side on the floor. Both lamps had fallen and were broken, ringed by their puddles of coal oil. The big window at the front was now gla.s.sless. Vanover had noticed that someone had swept the walk outside clear.
The extent of the wreckage left Vanover with a helpless, muddled feeling. Because he didn't know Lyans well, his look went to Clark Dunne as he asked: ”Any ideas?”
”Not many, Fred,” Clark told him. ”The safe door was pried open above the lock, and nitroglycerin poured down the slot. Whoever did it broke into the powder shed behind the hardware store and stole what he needed. That safe wasn't any too strong.”
”I've been trying to get them to send me a new one,” Vanover said ruefully.
”You'll have to tell us what's missin',” Lyans put in, and stepped over to hold his lantern so that its light illuminated the safe's interior.
Vanover knelt in front of the deputy. His brief glance showed him the strongbox and the two money bags missing. He said tonelessly, speaking more to himself than to them: ”This is out of my hands now. They'll send their own crew up here to recover the money.”
”Was there much?” Clark asked.
Vanover looked back over his shoulder at him. ”Close to nine thousand. My instructions were to have it on hand to make a cash payment on any outfit that came up for sale.”
Lyans whistled softly, eloquently. ”That much?”
Vanover nodded and came erect, his face looking tired and worn. ”Have you moved him?” he asked quietly.
”No. He's out there.” Lyans led the way to the alley door and, through it, stepped aside and held his lantern extended so that the canvas-covered mound lying close to the door was fully lighted. He motioned to a man standing beyond, and the canvas was pulled back to reveal Ed Merrill's body lying huddled, face down, one arm out of sight. It was as though Merrill had gone to sleep under a light covering, and had hunched his big frame together against the night's bitter chill.
Vanover took a hasty look. ”Where was he hit?”
”Stoop down and you can see,” Lyans said. ”We ain't touched him yet. Wanted you to be here before we did.”
The pallor of Vanover's face clearly indicated his reluctance to be a witness to this. Without bothering to inspect the body further, he said: ”Go ahead with what you have to do.”
Lyans set his lantern on the ground, nodded to the man who had been standing guard, and together they knelt and gently rolled the body on its back. Vanover looked away quickly as the gaping hole in the forehead came into sight. Because he looked away, he didn't know the reason for the deputy's quick intake of breath.
It was Clark Dunne, behind Vanover, who asked: ”What is it, Bill?”
”Have a look for yourself.”
Only then, when he realized that something unusual was happening, did Vanover force himself to look again. When he did, it was to see a braided band of black-and-white horsehair clenched tightly in Merrill's hand, the hand that had been out of sight beneath his body.
”You're a witness to this, Mister Vanover,” Lyans said tonelessly. ”He must've grabbed it just as he was. .h.i.t. Who knows where it came from?”
There were seven men crowded around the body now, those who had been in the office plus one or two more who had been waiting out here. One of them spoke up immediately: ”I wouldn't swear it was his, but Joe Bonnyman used to own a hatband a lot like that.”
”Don't be a fool, Corwine,” Clark Dunne said softly, yet explosively. ”Joe couldn't have done this . . . wouldn't. He's not the kind to club a man with the b.u.t.t end of a gun. Besides, Blaze and I were with him when he climbed onto that late freight. He's fifty miles from here by now.”
”Let's get this straight,” Lyans said quickly, eying the man who had identified the hatband. ”You're sure about this, Corwine? It's Bonnyman's?”
”Holy mackerel, no, I ain't sure. I said it could be.”
”And them two had a sc.r.a.p tonight,” Lyans breathed, thinking aloud. Sudden determination showed on his face as he wheeled on the nearest man. ”Al, go get Johns out of bed and down to the station to wire the agent at Junction. He's to find out if Bonnyman's on that train. She's due at Junction at two-ten. If Bonnyman ain't on the train, tell Johns to get a report from the conductor on when he got off.” He nodded to the man who had been watching the body. ”You and Bates carry him on down to Hill's, Ned. The rest of you hang around until I get the report. We may have some ridin' to do before mornin'.”
Ned and two others were lifting the body, slung in the canvas, ready to carry it on down the alley to the undertaker's, before anyone spoke.
It was Clark Dunne who said gravely: ”I'd go easy on this angle, Bill. Joe isn't a killer. He's on that train, I tell you. If that's Joe's hatband, there's a good reason for its being here.”
”Sure, sure,” Lyans drawled easily. ”Only you don't expect me to just forget about it, do you?”
Jean Vanover had been wakened by the strident knocking on the front door, and was about to answer it when she heard her father cross the living room. A moment later she recognized Roy Keech's excited voice and, standing at the head of the back hallway, caught most of what he said. A strong foreboding took her as he told of the robbery, an intuitive feeling that the suspicions and hatreds eased by tonight's agreement between the ranchers and Middle Arizona might come alive again. But, more immediately important, was the tragedy of Ed Merrill's death.
As Lyans's messenger finished giving Fred Vanover the brief but grisly facts on the killing, Jean called: ”Dad, what's being done about Ruth? She's there alone at the hotel, isn't she? Could I go stay with her?”
Keech answered out of the darkness: ”That'd sure be a help, ma'am. Far as I know, Lyans ain't thought of any way to tell her yet. She's in room Number Fourteen.”
Jean dressed hurriedly, hearing her father and Keech leave before she had quite finished. Out on the street, she gathered her coat tightly about her against the bite of the cold night air. She took the dogleg bend in the street, and, seeing the crowd and the lights at the Land Office close ahead, she purposely avoided going over there by keeping to the opposite walk. She wished she could be with her father now, to help him take this bitter defeat that might undo all the fruits of his long struggle to settle things peaceably with the ranchers. But this other was more important. Ruth Merrill's manner was always proud and distant, not only toward her alone; Jean knew that at such a time as this the girl would be alone and friendless, and the stubborn streak in her wouldn't let her side with others when it came to gloating over Ruth's misery.
The upper hallway of The Antlers was empty and so dark that Jean had a hard time finding the Number 14 on a door far back along it. Her knock remained unanswered for a long interval, so that she had to repeat it, much louder the second time.
Finally Ruth Merrill's voice called sleepily: ”Who is it?”
”Jean Vanover, Ruth. May I come in?”
Ruth made some unintelligible response and Jean tried the door. It was locked. She waited as sounds of movement came from inside. Finally lamplight glowed beneath the sill, and a moment later the door opened on Ruth. She was pulling a robe about her, tying its cord. Her silvery blonde hair was mussed, the braids hanging down her back loosened to give her a slightly disheveled look. Typically she smoothed down the robe at her slender waist and reached up to run a high-backed comb through her hair; her two hands came down to rub color into her cheeks, and at once she was her usual beautiful self, calm, a.s.sured, her look a trifle aloof as she said: ”Isn't it rather late?”
”Yes, Ruth. But something has happened. It . . .”
”To Ed?” Ruth asked with surprising intuition. She stepped aside and Jean moved past her into the room.
”Yes, to Ed. There's been an accident.”
Jean was trying to think of words to add, words that would ease the shock of the message she was bringing, when Ruth breathed softly: ”He's dead. I know it. You don't need to tell me.”
All Jean could do was give a brief nod of her dark head and watch the change that came over the other girl. Ruth seemed to shrink visibly, to lose her proud bearing as her shoulders sagged lifelessly. Her bright-blue eyes became moist, then tear-filled, and she was no longer quite so beautiful. Jean held out her arms. The other girl, stripped of her cloak of pride, came to her, trying to stifle a sob.
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